The Addiction No One Wants To Admit To

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I’m pretty sure the default thinking upon reading this title is I am going to write about screen addiction. Cell phones, computers, and all manner of media devices have so inundated our lives that for a large portion of every day we are basically just walking bobble heads, with very little connection to our body sensations, subtle energy, or the natural world around us.

The point of AI should be to decrease our reliance on screens, but it only seems to be fueling our addiction. Perhaps there’s a reason for that, as there is a ridiculous amount of money to be made by corporations in global screen addiction. Screen addiction is an easy-to-admit and socially accepted addiction that isn’t going anywhere. I get it.

However, screen addiction spirals into the addiction I am writing about here. It is the addiction to information, and specifically, information that gives us answers to our problems: the addiction to other people’s authorities. This is another place where buckets of money can be made in feeding an addiction. The creation and selling of answers, formulas, and methods, shortcuts for anything you are interested in is always available right at your fingertips. And everyone knows that another person’s methodology for doing something is better than one’s own, right?

My own work gets caught up in this authority addiction. I write to inform and to teach, and to empower people to find their own unique soul paths. I am not an authority. I am simply a teacher and an opener of doors. There is literally no formula for what I do. The minute I create a path, I am wounding people who need to find themselves. This is the healing power of paradox.

An Expert For Everything Breeds Insecurity

Our societal habits have bred an insecurity in people. We aren’t very capable of trusting ourselves. We do not know how to discover, experiment, or play without the backing of science or another person’s knowledge. We are addicted to finding out how to do things from experts. We are addicted to knowing how to name or understand everything and anything. We want to categorize, and then we want to know.

This societal insecurity means there is a stream of disempowerment in global consciousness. We try to create our happiness and livelihoods off another person’s ideas, genius or mastery. Is it working?

There are too many dulled people living discontented lives as a result of this addiction to outer-looking instead of inner-seeking. I love watching people find their path to an embodied and expressed vital life, connected to their heart and soul, but so many people want to find their own, unique answers in someone else’s soul path. We want to go from student to master too quickly, without doing the hard work of discovering ourselves.

Personal growth is not pretty. It is not packaged. We know this with art. The path of a true artist is the discovery of outer knowledge by expressing the results of searching within. This searching requires time away from screens and the input of others. Seeking our own path means we have to find ways to connect with ourselves authentically to grow. Teachers and guides can be invaluable, of course, but we do not get growth and solutions until we can combine what we learn with the discovery of who we truly are.

Releasing Authority Addiction

An addict would say that everything changed when they were willing to admit their addiction and do the work they needed to do in order to quit. The change is a bookmarked place in time. The memory is universal and poignant in every addict I have ever worked with, whether or not they ever touch the substance they are addicted to again. But, an addict understands they have to work towards balance.

How does this translate with outer authority addiction? We’d have to be willing to say “I don’t know” a lot more in life. We’d need to question our instinct to reach for information that is getting in the way of our own seeking within. I cannot tell you those five things you need to do to discover your soul or open your heart, because my five things is going to be completely different than your five things. We’d have to be at least willing to surrender to an unknown instead of consistently turning to the magical device for a blog to read, a program to purchase, or a formula to follow.

We need to look within for the solutions to our happiness, in conjunction with what is available on the screen, and figure out how to make it our own. The more curious we are about exploring our uniqueness, the more we can awaken to our genuine path of fulfillment, and not someone else’s.

Four years ago, Nessa Emrys shifted her personal paradigm and became a digital nomad. Nowadays she works as a multidimensional therapist and writer, using travel to embody compassion and challenge personal perspectives. You can read more of her work at her Transcend The Mental substack.

Find holistic Consciousness Transformation in the Spirit of Change online Alternative Health Directory.

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